Wallcoverings have come a long way since the days of fuzzy, flocked papers in garish colors. Today, the erstwhile decorative product offers added value in the form of LEED credits, antimicrobial coatings, and even light-transmitting properties. Read on to see what’s on our radar.

Designed by Karen Hsu of Omnivore and Keryn Dizon, this pattern has a 27 ½-inch repeat; 27-inch-wide rolls are 15 feet long. The delicate photographic image comes in four standard colorways, with custom colors available; on clay-coat paper or silver mylar.

Ceramiche Refin S.p.A. pulls from the raw, urban street conditions around us to define their ‘District‘ collection – a series of porcelain tiles that translates the textured and crude surfaces that we see outside, for appreciation indoors.

Porcelain tiles with finishes reminiscent of asphalt (Road) that combine with the metallic-style vintage materials typical of old-style shops (Garage), as well as distressed woods inspired by velodrome surfaces and the small brickwork found on indoor walls (Track).

Collectively, ‘District’ is an expression of urban lifestyle that is evident in the busiest of the world’s metropolis’s — from london to new york — taking on the rugged, industrial and underground mood that is projected in these places, and refining them for enhancing your desired space.

The result is a complex porcelain tiles collection ideal for bringing a wealth of personal touches to residential settings, or for tiling commercial settings throughout in order to create up-to-the-minute atmospheres with a dynamic personality.

Winter months in the Benelux countries are not known for blue skies and bright sun. So perhaps there’s an altruistic underpinning to the design of the new 59-room Pantone Hotel in Brussels. Did architect Olivier Hannaert and interior designer Michel Pennemann seek to lift the seasonally-depressed spirits of the populace through the colorful palette? We’d like to think so, although the relentless branding campaign by the client raises a smidgen of doubt.

Installed in the lobby of the John and Frances Angelos Law Center, the moveable mesh curtain serves as a room divider and security screen. (Courtesy Cambridge Architectural)

Strength and softness meet in a metal mesh room divider.

Interior dividers can be functional to a fault. If a partition is all you need, then even drywall would do the trick. A custom-built metal curtain in the University of Baltimore’s new law building, however, brings an architectural sensibility to the problem of dividing one space into two. The curtain bisects the lobby with stainless steel, woven into mesh for a unique and uncharacteristically soft texture. Read More

A Fifth Avenue apartment designed by Paul Rudolph in 1970 has been sold to a private owner for $26 million according to the the New York Observer. Commissioned by Claire & Maurits Edersheim for whom Rudolph also renovated a Larchmont New York house and a Smith Barney office, the apartment, according to the Paul Rudolph Foundation, “features many of the characteristic elements of Rudolph’s interior architecture from the mid-Sixties through the Seventies: extensive use of mirrors and reflective surfaces, plastics and other synthetic materials, curvilinear geometry, painterly use of color, and experimental lighting.”

While it is not known if the new owners will retain any of the classic Rudolph interior, the Observer noted that the owners plan to combine the unit with another to create a larger duplex, which could mean Rudolph’s details will be lost. The interior currently has a series of Rudolph’s typical small, highly-designed spaces which look perfect for a dry martini!

At NeoCon this year, IIDA (International Interior Design Association) presented copies of What Clients Want, the first-ever study of the client/designer relationship told from the point of view of the client, written and edited by Melissa Feldman, IIDA’s executive vice president. IIDA CEO Cheryl Durst called it “a groundbreaking account of how some C-suite executives have been able to alter their companies’ destinations through design [by] firms who got inside their corporate DNA and pushed them to be better.”

Durst is referring to companies like Autodesk, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, the Cowboys Stadium, and Facebook, which enlisted the services of Primo Orpilla and Verda Alexander of Studio O+A, a husband and wife duo who have designed interiors for a roster of “techie brands” like Aol, eBay, Microsoft, and PayPal. In 2008, O+A was commissioned to consolidate Facebook’s spread of ten office buildings in Palo Alto, California, and merge them into Hewlett Packard’s former HQ. Studio O+A credits the extensive research they conduct on potential clients prior to any design work for landing the gig.

The Canopy at Acqua Livingstone by MISSONIHOME. (Courtesy Century Properties)

With bright colors, rich patterns, and futuristic forms that would make Verner Panton drool, Italian homewear company MissoniHome has recently completed their first fully-branded residential tower, the 52-story Acqua Livingstone in Manila, Philippines. The project is the fourth tower of six in the $315.9 million Acqua Private Residences project, developed in the Philippine capital by Century Properties Group.

[Editor’s Note: This the second in a four-part series documenting the winners of the AIANY’s 2012 Design Awards, which are broken down into four categories: architecture, interiors, unbuilt work, and urban design. This list covers the interior awards.]

The AIANY has released its annual list of Design Awards noting projects that demonstrate exemplary originality and quality. Interior Honor and Merit Award winners were selected by a jury consisting of Rand L. Elliott of Elliott+Associates Architects, Alice Y. Kimm of John Friedman and Alice Kimm Architects, and Gary L. Lee of Gary Lee Partners. Three interior projects were distinguished with the top Honor Award including Nam June Paik Library by N H D M / Nahyun Hwang + David Eugin Moon, Logan by Formactiv with SO-IL, and the Hinman Research Building by Lord, Aeck & Sargent with Office dA. Winning work in all four categories will be on display ay the Center for Architecture at 536 LaGuardia Place beginning April 19 through May 31.

Charles Dickens would have been 200 today. Among the bicentennial celebrations of the noted Victorian writer, the Museum of London has been hosting an elaborate Dickens and Londonexhibition including a Dickensian street scene designed and built by set designer Simon Costin for its City Gallery. The “fantastical wintry vision of 19th century London” made entirely of cardboard and lit with hundreds of LED lights includes quite an array of Victorian buildings and winding alleyways. According to Costin, “My intention is to create a fantasy vision of London as it would have been glimpsed by Dickens on his nocturnal wanderings through the city. His essays are extremely evocative and I am using the text as my starting point and things will grow and develop from there. He has said that he felt like a child in a dream, ‘staring at the marvellousness of everything’. It is that marvellousness that I want to recreate.” The window display closes this month, but if you’re in London, the MoL’s Dickens show keeps going through June. (Via Creative Review.)

But it turns out Dickens had his own eye for design as well. Hilary Macaskill recently wrote in the Guardian that the Victorian author had quite the penchant for interior design. She cites a 6,000 word article (you can become amazingly descriptive when paid by the word) he wrote about wallpaper and other decorations, where he remarks on the design of American wallcoverings from his recent visit in 1842 along with his own designs for wallpaper. Even in his home at 48 Doughty Street, Dickens enjoyed crafting the interior spaces down to the shade of pink trim and a set of decanters he picked up for “slight bargains.” Read the entire article here and check out a slideshow of his home here.

Vernon Davis. (Montage with images by MCD and John Martinez Pavliga / Flickr)

Vernon Davis the San Francisco 49er tight end who caught a spectacular pass in the end zone in the final seconds of Saturday’s game with New Orleans is more than just a football player. Not only is he an avid curling fan and player (he was honorary captain of the Men’s U.S. Olympic Curling team for the for the U.S. team in the 2010 Olympics) but he is also an interior designer. Davis is the co-owner of MCD or Modern Class Design along with music industry executive Antone Barnes. MCD focuses on designing interior spaces for “athletes and other clients that are suited to the client’s taste, but still affordable.” He tells his athlete clients, “You don’t have to break your bank to live well and have style,” and “this moment won’t last forever, so plan for the future.”